Brigitte tells of band of brothers planning Sydney terrorist strike

From his cell in the Fleury-Merogis prison outside Paris, Willy Brigitte has been telling French interrogators about a network of plotters who had an Australian attack in mind last year.

They include a Pakistani mastermind, a Chechen explosives expert and a Sydney man he calls Abu Hamza. The common link is Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist group banned by the Federal Government in November.

"The Lashkar group based in Sydney, and formed around Abu Hamza, was preparing a large-scale terrorist act in Australia," is one comment attributed to Brigitte from a formal investigation.

According to ABC television's Four Corners program to be broadcast tonight, Brigitte told anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere that Hamza had the keys to Brigitte's Wiley Park flat in Sydney's south-west and would organise "meetings there with the brothers".

Brigitte's French lawyers told the ABC their client did not participate personally in any preparation for a terrorist act.

However, the program said Brigitte told French authorities he had attended a Lashkar training camp in Pakistan.

There he had met a Pakistani named Sajid, who later organised and paid for Brigitte's trip to Australia, and a Chechen explosives instructor called Abu Salah.

Sajid had ordered Brigitte to link up with Hamza.

The interview transcript says Brigitte recalled Hamza telling him to expect an unnamed house guest at Wiley Park.

"I deduced that it could be an explosives expert and I asked Abu Hamza if he knew who it was, but he didn't answer me openly, he just smiled. So I thought of Abu Salah."

After Brigitte's arrest in October, ASIO started watching his contacts. It discovered that Hamza had been making inquiries about buying large quantities of chemicals which could be used to make bombs.

Both Four Corners and yesterday's Channel Nine Sunday program report that Hamza seen dumping in a rubbish bin images from the internet of four Sydney-based military facilities, Holsworthy army base, Garden Island Naval base, Victoria Barracks and HMAS Penguin.

Sydney lawyer Stephen Hopper has six clients whose homes were raided by ASIO in November, including Hamza, although "I'm not calling him that, I refer to him by a different name," Mr Hopper said yesterday. "There have been no charges laid and I have seen no evidence that would substantiate any charge."

The Opposition spokesman on homeland security, Robert McClelland, is not so sure. He wondered yesterday whether government decisions had delayed justice catching up with the Lashkar cell Brigitte is alleged to have been sent to activate.

"I think we are entitled to ask whether the fact that Willy Brigitte was sent out of the country has impeded a prosecution of others in Australia," Mr McClelland said. "We are talking about a period six months down the track and yet we have seen not one prosecution in Australia."

Mr Hopper agreed that swiftly deporting Brigitte was a mistake, but for a different reason.

He says prolonged surveillance would have produced no evidence of a bomb plot.

"My clients have all denied that they have engaged in any activity that's unlawful in relation to terrorism," Mr Hopper said.

He said he was constrained by Australia's new anti-terrorism laws from responding to specific allegations on his client's behalf.

A spokesman for the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, said the investigations sparked by Brigitte's arrest were "far from over", with ASIO still monitoring and the Australian Federal Police pursuing criminal leads.

A government source said that a month ago, the investigation had moved from being "intelligence-led" to "law-enforcement-led".

"You can't go out and make an assertion about someone and arrest them and charge them," the source said. "As always the difficult thing here is establishing intent."

But the level of threat had subsided. "Their capacity now to do any harm has been significantly compromised by the very fact that Willy Brigitte was taken into custody and by the very fact that we now know a lot more than we did a few months back."

As for the four military establishments, "these guys in our assessment were in the very early stages of target selection".

Mr Ruddock's spokesman also rejected criticism of ASIO for remaining ignorant of a French warning that Brigitte was "potentially dangerous" over the October long weekend.

He said the French had made no effort to check that the warning had been received.